Eddie Hearn Sets Los Angeles Talks With Dana White
Eddie Hearn says a meeting with Dana White is supposed to happen this week, and he is treating it as a negotiation rather than a surrender. The subject is White’s role in Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury, the December 11 heavyweight fight at Principality Stadium in Cardiff that streams on Netflix.
Hearn put the timing in loose terms and the purpose in plainer ones. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be within,” he said, before correcting himself. “No, I don’t know. You know, it could be clear the air, could be what we’re going to do, are we going to keep doing this?” The talks are set for Wednesday in Los Angeles. Hearn had already said, after Saturday’s comments in Birmingham, that the other side wanted him in L.A. next week and that he would probably go.
The condition has not moved. “Ultimately, I don’t mean to sound arrogant, they cannot be involved in the fight unless myself and Anthony allow them to be,” Hearn said. He then named the pressure. “And they seem to be very desperate to be involved in the fight, and Turki wants them to be involved in the fight, and so do Netflix.” HE Turki Alalshikh’s The Ring and White were listed as collaborators when the date was announced. Hearn’s stage billing for the London launch did not include White.
He is not ruling the meeting out. “And I get, like, that, you know, it’s great for the promotion, so I’m not against it,” he said. “I just want you to tell me explain why. Why should I? You know? So, what’s in it for us? And once we establish that, we can make a decision.” He also said the public argument has helped the build-up. “It’s been great to the promotion of the build-up and the hype.”
The apology is not on the agenda. “Not said anything personally offensive to me,” Hearn said. “So I’m not really like, oh, you need to apologize.” The leverage claim came next. “They’re completely checkmated in this situation.” He said he does not plan to spend the next 10 weeks answering every comment with the contract. “If you really want to be involved that badly, talk to me. Dance with me. Dance with me. I reckon we could probably, we might work something out.”
That is a different sentence from the one he says White should have used. Hearn’s version of the correct statement was an acknowledgment of the contractual position, a step back, and a meeting with Matchroom, himself, and Turki Alalshikh to find a way forward.
“That’s what he was supposed to say, and he didn’t quite do it,” Hearn said. He also asked why White should be let in “after everything that you’ve said, and the way that you’ve acted, and the arrogance that you have.”
White’s side of the same week did not sound like a man asking permission. At the UFC 332 post-fight press conference he said he will be in Wales, that Craig Borsari and his production team will run the show the way they did Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford, and that he does not hear the contract until a reporter reads it to him.
“I’ll be there. I’m producing it. I’m promoting it. I’ll see you in Wales,” he said. On Thursday he had called the London absence a travel problem, not a ban, after Contender Series taping kept him off the September 30 launch.
Hearn used Max Kellerman to argue that the public line and the private line are not the same. On a Zuffa broadcast, Kellerman described White as assisting Alalshikh in a personal capacity, not as a promoter. Hearn does not think that wording was Kellerman’s.
“You don’t think, you think Max Kellerman would ever say anything like that, confirming Dana White’s position, without being told to say it,” he said. He added that White then reacted as if he could not believe the comment. “It’s just, they’re not connected, the top people and him.”
The contract fight is older than the Cardiff date. Hearn has said Joshua’s deal bars TKO and Zuffa from promotional involvement unless Matchroom allows it. Fury has said the same clause was in his contract and that he removed it so White could be involved. The Netflix announcement still paired Alalshikh’s The Ring with White. Hearn’s answer has been that Netflix did not get the memo.
Wednesday does not settle the fight. It settles whether Hearn will hear a reason he says he has not been given. Joshua and Fury are still booked for December 11 in Cardiff, on Netflix, with or without White’s name on the poster. Hearn says the meeting can clear the air or decide whether the argument continues. White has already said he will see the press in Wales.
